Ben Carson Wins GOP Straw Poll

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson won the presidential straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City on Saturday, beating out Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Carson won 25.4 percent of the vote, while Walker took 20.5 percent and Cruz received 16.4 percent. Other GOP presidential hopefuls and potential candidates finished far behind the top trio. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie finished a distant fourth with 5.3 percent of the vote, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry took 5 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won 4.9 percent. Winning the straw poll could provide a boost to Carson’s long-shot candidacy. “The fact of the matter is that I believe our founders set up a system that wasn’t supposed to cater to a political class,” Carson said at the conference. “It was supposed to cater to the people.”

Walker and Perry are expected to formally announce their candidacies in the next couple of weeks.